he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”44
The Third Temptation
Twice rebuffed by Jesus, the wise and dread spirit still persists and comes yet a third time with his most powerful and persuasive temptation.
On one level this temptation can be interpreted as the temptation to accept power and influence whenever it is offered, no matter by whom, no matter on what terms. In this case, Jesus is offered such power at the very outset of his public life from the hand of the wise and dread spirit on the condition that he bow down and give his allegiance to the one offering it.
To Dostoyevsky this temptation is much more diabolical than that. It is the temptation to exercise spiritual leadership—to bring about obedience to God’s laws and standards, to bring about the kingdom of heaven on earth—not by grace, not by inviting men and women to freely choose to follow and serve Christ, but by seizing the authority and powers of the state and using them to compel obedience to the spiritual agenda.
What an awe-inspiring and irresistible temptation! The wise and dread spirit of this world, whom Jesus himself three times referred to in his later ministry as the prince of this world, takes Jesus up to the top of a high mountain—the symbol in the Scriptures of political authority.45 Then in a flash, in a moment of time, he shows him the kingdoms of this world—all of them:
From the absolute power and authority of the Egyptian pharaohs and the ancient Chinese emperors to the cumulative power and authority of the British Empire at its peak. From the power and authority of Prussia and the kaiser to the Third Reich; from the Kremlin and the Soviet Empire to the United States Senate and Congress to the Asian superpowers of the 21st century …
From the power and authority of the Greek city states to the vast empires of the valley of the Euphrates; from the court of Alexander the Great to the ancient kingdoms of the Mayas and Incas and Aztecs and the Khmer people of Angkor Wat; from the great colonial empires of Spain, Portugal, France, and England to the great democracies of today …
From the power and authority of the theocratic kingdom of David and Solomon to the popes of the Holy Roman Empire; from the power and authority of the princes of the Reformation to that of the princes and caliphs of Islam. From the military camps of Attila the Hun to those of the Vikings and the Gauls, to the Roman Senate and the household of Caesar himself …
And then, having shown Jesus all these kingdoms and governments of the world—from the dawn of time to the ends of the ages—Satan says, All this power and authority I will give you so that you can compel people everywhere to follow and obey your teachings. The one condition is that you bow down and worship the spirit of this world, the spirit that says the key to achieving the peace and universal happiness of humanity is the holding and exercise of political power and authority.
Jesus’ Response to the Third Temptation
So what was Jesus’ response to this temptation? It was, again, clearly and emphatically to reject it, saying, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”46
Note that in this case, he names the source of his temptation—Satan, evil personified—and that, whereas Satan offers power and authority, Jesus commands service. And as we will see, it is this rejection by Jesus of worldly power that most infuriates the Grand Inquisitor.
Implications for Us: Should We Seek political Power in Order to Compel Allegiance to Christ?
Does this temptation have a familiar ring? Of course it does. This temptation has been presented to, and has often been embraced by, Christian leadership in every century from Jesus’ time right down to our own.
Have you not heard the following argument advanced by well-meaning Christian leaders and their supporters in the public arena?
The atheists, agnostics, materialists, and secularists have got hold of the levers of political power and have used those levers to impose a non-Christian and even anti-Christian agenda on our nation. They have promoted and legalized abortion. They have curtailed prayer in the schools. They have made secular humanism the governing philosophy of the education system. They are redefining marriage to obliterate its traditional and spiritual meaning and promoting state-sanctioned euthanasia. They pursue social and taxation policies that weaken the traditional family. They have replaced the God of the Scriptures with the gods of the state and marketplace and the goddess of sexual promiscuity.
And so, what should good Christian people who oppose these trends and want to reverse them do? They should—by public and political action—get their hands on the political levers and then use those same levers to impose a Christian agenda: to ban or at least regulate abortion; to restore prayer and the promotion of Christian values in the schools; to adopt social and taxation policies that support and strengthen the traditional family; to constrain rather than feed economic and sexual appetites; to restore traditional spiritual beliefs and practices based on the Christian Scriptures to their rightful place in government, the marketplace, and society.
What a laudable and appealing proposition from the standpoint of the Christian community! Seize the levers of political power and authority in your society, and use those to promote and establish the kingdom of heaven on earth. What a noble temptation!
It is of course a very old temptation—one as old as Christendom itself, one to which many Christians and Christian leaders have succumbed—and we should learn from their experience.
During the first three centuries after Jesus’ earthly sojourn ended, the Christian community was a minority in the Roman Empire—at first a tiny minority—bitterly persecuted by both the political and the religious establishments. But with the passage of time it grew in numbers and influence.
Then, in the words of the Grand Inquisitor as he recounted this history to the Christ,
Just eight centuries ago, we took from him, the wise and mighty spirit in the wilderness, what Thou didst reject with scorn, the last gift he offered Thee, showing Thee all the kingdoms of the earth. We took from him Rome and the sword of Caesar, and proclaimed ourselves sole rulers of the earth … But Thou mightest have taken even then the sword of Caesar. Why didst Thou reject that last gift? Had Thou accepted that last offer of the mighty spirit, Thou wouldst have accomplished all that man seeks on earth—that is, someone to worship, someone to keep his conscience, and some means of uniting all in one unanimous and harmonious ant heap, because the craving for universal unity is the third and last anguish of men … Hadst Thou taken the world and Caesar’s purple, Thou wouldst have founded the universal state and have given universal peace. For who can rule men if not he who holds their conscience and their bread in his hands.47
Yet Jesus, to the bitter disappointment of the Grand Inquisitor, rejected it all!
The Roman Empire declined and eventually disappeared, to be followed centuries later by the Holy Roman Empire, a marriage of professedly Christian institutions and a Christian agenda to the political instruments of the evolving state, a marriage that begot the Crusades and eventually produced the Spanish Inquisition—an institution characterized by a fusion of the powers of the state with those of the professing Christian church so absolute that the powers of the state were used to burn at the stake those whom the church deemed to be heretics and a danger to the purity and the practice of the faith.
Western statesmen today profess to be alarmed at the fusion of religion and government preached and practised by Islamic fundamentalists, and they should be. But in communicating our concerns, let us do so with the frank acknowledgement that for over 800 years Christendom attempted very much the same thing, with results even more disastrous for religion than for politics.
In my own political experience, the biggest single public fear of electing strongly professing